Thursday, June 14, 2007

That the fascist Democrats are opposed to free speech from their ideological foes is ancient news as immutable as the wetness of water and the sun rising in the East. Well, not content to try and stifle inconvenient truths being spoken against them, they are now placing residents of Florida's Broward County in harms way from hurricanes because they refuse to broadcast on the highest-rated news/talk station because they also broadcast Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. As Hugh Hewitt writes:

And so we reach the inevitable end of the left’s campaign against the First Amendment. The Democrats in Broward County have officially declared themselves as the anti-free speech party. Commissioner Ritter is to be applauded for her candor, for declaring openly what elected Democrats across the country mutter quietly to themselves: “Rush, Sean and the rest must be silenced!”

I have heard of brass-knuckled politics before, but never anything on the order of denying your political opponents news of approaching hurricanes.

When Katrina struck, some wild-eyed lefties accused President Bush of denying relief efforts to New Orleans because the city was predominantly African-American.

Now we have actual proof of Democrats wanting to keep conservatives in the dark about approaching storms.

WIOD is the big news-talk voice on the block in south Florida –the news/talk ratings giant in the region. Those of us in the business know such things. If you want to get the word out about breaking news, you go to WIOD, first. It is where people in the area turn for bulletins.

Professionals tend to be cold-eyed about data, and the data says one thing: If you want to warn south Florida about the approach of a hurricane, you’d better get the message on WIOD.

The facts ought to be telling the Broward County lefties that they are putting politics ahead of the public interest.

Any serious law professor will also tell the Broward County bigs that what they have done is a blatantly unconstitutional punishment of speech. To bestow a benefit or inflict a punishment on the basis of the political perspective of the citizens involved is outrageous and will be condemned by any serious student of the First Amendment.

What’s next: Instructing the Broward County Fire Department to refuse calls from homes with Romney or Giuliani signs in the yard?

This absurd action from Broward County Democrats is a sign of desperation on the left. Air America has failed. The MSM is bleeding readers and viewers. Tony Blair has produced a scathing indictment of how the left-wing elite media operates. Fox News is thriving. Townhall.com is surging. The blogs of the center-right –from Instapundit, Powerline, and Michelle Malkin through the young college student who just fired up their new site yesterday—are growing and not just in visitors but also in the ability to persuade and not merely enrage. The new media world favors facts and well-made arguments, and the center-right has those, in abundance.

Which means the palsied arguments of the left are going to lose. Which means the left is going to try and stop the discussion, try and censor the debate, try and clamp down on speech.